Happy GTA V week, everybody! As it turns out, we managed to wrest ourselves away from Los Santos just long enough to bring you the week in gaming, but surprisingly enough, the story that most caught our eye this week wasn’t the launch of one of the most anticipated games of all time—rather, it has to do with a game that never was. A few days ago, leaked concept art and some early footage of Turok 2—a game cancelled before it was even announced back in 2009—emerged, leaving us wistfully thinking of what might have been, and reflecting on the present fate of dinosaurs in video games.

Many N64 gamers remember the original Turok: Dinosaur Hunter fondly, and the game was a surprise hit for the console—after all, the game had a laser-wielding T-Rex, and gaming doesn’t get much better than that, folks. While Turok received an official sequel in 1998 (and a few more games to boot), the series underwent a modern-day reset with the launch of Turok in 2008 on current-gen consoles and PCs. While the 2008 edition was met with a lukewarm reception, now-defunct Vancouver-based game studio Propaganda Games was initially tasked with creating a sequel until Disney stepped in to quash its development. The short clip above—probably representative of the game in an alpha or pre-alpha stage—depicts a T-Rex encounter, and the awakening of Turok.

The question that always comes to mind, then, is why have there not been more dinosaur-based video games in the modern era? There are a few exceptions to this rule, sure (Primal Carnage comes to mind), but really, since the days of Turok, Dino Crisis, and Jurassic Park (the Genesis version, not the incredibly lame SNES version), dinosaurs in gaming have become virtually extinct.

Some pin this phenomenon on the vast ambition and subsequent spectacular failure of Jurassic Park: Trespasser back in 1998. The concept of Trespasser was brilliant—an open-world survival-horror game (with the emphasis on survival) in which the entire world was constructed to appropriately represent dinosaurs within it, with a sole survivor scratching and clawing to salvage and survive in the wild. Unfortunately, the execution left a lot to be desired, and after all the anticipation, the game’s ruin seemed to scare developers off of dinosaurs for good.

An unfortunate happenstance, as given current-gen tech enhancements, the timing is perfect today for a game like Trespasser, done right. On a selfish aside, we’d love to see a dinosaur game based on the various dino hunt safaris available from Time Safari, Inc., the notorious time travel agency situated in the Ray Bradbury classic “A Sound of Thunder.” Or perhaps a current-gen action-focused Jurassic Park game (a void left unfulfilled by Telltale’s flawed Jurassic Park).

What games, current or past, have sated your thirst for dinosaurs, Dear Reader? And how would you like to see this particular genre develop? Let us know below!

In other gaming news this week, a League of Legends player acquaints himself with a ghost pepper, Blizzard kills Diablo III’s auction houses, GTA V makes a crapload of money, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD instantly becomes the Wii U’s best game. Read on!

What better way to enhance your League of Legends experience than by accompanying it with one of the world’s hottest peppers: the ghost pepper? (warning: NSFW language.)

In the most unsurprising PS4 news ever, GameStop Germany has apparently outed plans for a next-gen Uncharted game on Sony’s upcoming console.

In welcome news to ARPG fans, Blizzard is finally killing Diablo III’s auction houses next March. This change affects both the real money and gold auction houses, and has been a long time coming. In explaining the change, Blizzard stated: “…it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo’s core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot”—a fact that was clear to everyone in the gaming universe upon the game’s launch except, apparently, Blizzard themselves. Oh well. Better a year-and-a-half late than never, we suppose.

In related news, what was your reaction to GTA V’s most controversial scene (so far)? In case you haven’t heard, the scene involves the extreme and graphic torture of a man suspected of harboring crucial information relating to terrorism. It’s tricky to judge these issues without context, so the link included attempts to provide it, for those who have yet to play the game.

Humble Indie Bundle 9 has become, unbelievably, an even better deal via the addition of four more games to their pay-what-you-want package, including modern gaming classic, Limbo. Some or all proceeds of the Humble Bundle go to charity, depending on how you wish to allocate your payment.

Finally, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD is pretty much the best Wii U game ever, thus far. Fans of the original are already aware of the pure quality of this game, but for the uninitiated: if you have a Wii U, get this game. If you don’t own a Wii U, this is the game that should have you thinking about getting one.

If there are games you’d like us to cover or blogs you think we should be following for more news, please let us know @tdelucci or @pritpaulbains.